New software to beat credit card fraud

The Bank of New Zealand's novel software-based technology for reducing credit-card fraud is being rolled out in Australia by its parent company, National Australia Bank. "This is a New Zealand innovation, and we are in the process of extending it into Australia," said BNZ chief information officer Peter Yarrington. The bank has taken out global patents on several parts of the technology, which it first trialled in New Zealand two years ago. The "liquid encryption number" (LEN) technology is used on all BNZ credit and debit cards, and has cut the incidence of fraudulent transactions from "cloned" credit cards by 50 per cent, though the bank did not disclose to an Auckland press conference the numbers or dollar amounts involved. The technology works by changing numbers on a card's magnetic strips every time a transaction takes place, or an account balance is requested at an automatic teller (ATM). Posted in: Credit Card Fraud